


We Are Not Afraid

by AugustPendragon



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28009395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustPendragon/pseuds/AugustPendragon
Summary: Sam had told her to wait.But she wasn't about to start listening to him now.
Relationships: Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien/Sam Cortland
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	We Are Not Afraid

It was one, and Sam wasn't back.

Which had any of a hundred possible causes. She'd gone over them in her head a dozen times each, on the way to and from Jayne's mansion.

He'd succeeded and was laying low at the Assassin's Guild. It had proven too much a risk to return to her that night.  
Or the party had forced a change in plan, and he was waiting for an opening he was certain would soon come, and could not risk losing it to return on schedule.  
Maybe the carriage had just gone on an unusually long voyage, and he'd had to recalculate where and when to strike.  
Perhaps--

She turned and stalked out the door. If she was going to wait, she might as well wait walking instead of wondering.

The streets were dark and empty. Still no sign of disturbance. Which was a good thing, she reminded herself, with force. Sam was too skilled in their shared trade to not make a fuss if he'd...  
Yet still her stomach twisted. Still she wondered. And still she wandered, until she came to an all too familiar darkness.  
If. Each _if_ was a slim knife slid into her core.  
If Sam had somehow failed. If Farran had somehow survived.

They wouldn't have him screaming in the middle of a wealth-packed street.

The memory of the screams they'd heard earlier warped to a more familiar pitch. She kept the bile down and slipped the guards before the Vaults silver as if she hadn't a care in the world.

The fights were in full swing at this time of night. A quick glance showed Sam wasn't in them. How she would have relished that hated sight.  
She turned her head with broken necked stiffness to what she did not want to see. A guard before the door to the spiral stairs.

Which meant NOTHING, she told herself. It could be anyone down there. It could be NO ONE. Farran likely wouldn't want strangers nosing around through whatever he kept down there. This was stupid. There was nothing there and Sam was surely home by now and if she did anything reckless here she was going to get killed--

She crossed the distance without meaning to. The music and the howls of the crowd were too loud to hear anything else. The blood pumping in her ears was too loud to hear anything else.

She offered a fake drunken giggle at the guard, and false flirtations. Despite her beauty offered in tempting glimpses beneath her hood, he looked irate. Whatever Farran would do if he abandoned his post was good motivation to resist temptation.

So she stumbled clumsily forward and slipped a blade into his heart in the same motion. Despite his size her adrenaline helped her keep him standing, wrapping herself around him like a cozy concubine, his slumped head against her neck looking willing.

When a fighter went down in the next minute, she slipped past him amid the commotion and down the stairs.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She told herself to every beat of her heart. 

And then she heard a familiar voice, contorted in the ragged whisper of a scream, and she surged down the stairs like a storm.

Sam. SAM.

Chained and--bloodied and--burned and worse. One earth gold eye was gone forever.

And Farran was in front of him. FARRAN. Holding a bloodied knife--

A second knife buried itself in his spine. A too quick death, a too good death. But she spared him only one bitter thought before all of her thoughts were on SAM.  
Celaena. He mouthed her name, throat too raw to voice it, and she was at his side in an instant. Trembling hands removed wires from her suit and worked at his shackles even as her eyes assessed the damage.

There was so much of it. His skin was ripped and raw, crossed with the marks of a whip, and knives, and in places burnt black. She bit back a sob and cursed herself as she lost her grasp on the locking mechanism. 

He was hurt, badly. But there was no time to help him here. Farran's dead guard was one clumsy drunk away from tipping over and setting a dozen men down those narrow stairs.

One shackle gave way. Sam slumped against her and stayed there when she hissed at his attempt to move. The other shackle gave, releasing a hand broken nearly beyond recognition. She dropped to her knees and he went with her as she freed his ankles.

Only then did she allow him to try to stand, and only because the sooner they got the hell out the more likely he was to survive. Still mostly braced against her they mounted the steps as one, movement by painful movement. She was grateful Farran hadn't broken his legs. Grateful! Grateful for--how she would have liked an hour down there with him in those chains. What she would have DONE for that chance.

She hoped the damned gods were giving him a warm reception in hell.

A hell she seemed to have found herself, as she finally shoved open the awaiting door and saw half a dozen brutes turn to look at the corpse she'd just toppled over.

"Run," Sam whispered. She gave a cold laugh, and set him down. But not to RUN.

Screams broke out among the patronage, among those who had come to glorify violence but not participate in it. A few idiots grabbed their weapons. As for the first few guards to reach her, well.

Two dropped dead from her knives. She lunged forward and seized their dropped knives and dropped two more. But there were so many. Too many. 

She doubled back to Sam and crouched over him. A guttural growl left her throat.  
"Farran is dead."

The encroaching men stopped at that. They seemed disbelieving. More than one sneered.

She HISSED.

"I am Celaena Sardothien, and I am not afraid."

Now a few eyes widened. Still one dared step closer. She pulled the blade from her boot and he died a breath later.

And then they believed.

Pure adrenaline got her and Sam out of there. She dragged his weight like it was nothing. The infamy she had so carefully nurtured kept anyone from following. The guards stationed at the door had run in when the commotion started. Now that they were beyond the door, they were free.

To go WHERE? To do WHAT? Sam was hurt so badly--she didn't even know HOW badly he was hurt! She had to find--a healer, someone, someone at the guild--  
Sam knew her mind before she did. He shook his head.  
"Betrayed," he rasped, and it made so much sense. It was like another blade in her gut. By whom? If it had been someone in the guild--and she could well believe it--then there was no turning to them for help. Or could she? Whoever it had been wouldn't be so bold as to make another move when all eyes would be on Sam. Arobynn would help them, they'd root out--  
"Celaena."  
"What, Sam?" She croaked, half-desperate. She'd been moving as she thought. They were two streets from the Vaults now, and still hardly safe.  
"I'm alright."  
She would have hit him if he hadn't been dying.  
" _Celaena._ "

She looked at him. And then dropped to her knees, really looking at him, counting in her head the seconds she could spare.

Her first assessment had been both right and mercifully wrong. He'd been tortured in a dozen ways. But Farran had been planning for a dozen more. The knife wounds, the most immediate concern, were shallow incursions into muscle meant to cause suffering rather than death. He would live. He would LIVE.

She tossed her head to clear the tears. 

Behind her she could hear the distant yells of cowards regaining courage. She pulled Sam's arm up and around her shoulder and off they went into the night.

They laid low. Lower than low. She didn't dare go back to her apartment. They spent the day in the darkest crevices of alleys and shuttered shops, silent and still.

Farran had known he was coming, Sam had managed, his voice still raw. The man had kept himself tucked away inside the depths of the carriage the entire ride, safe from Sam's arrows. But the streets had been quiet and the wagon close to the alleys. Sam had shifted closer to the open road to angle in a shot. But then men had burst out of the carriage. Men who hadn't joined Farran in getting on. Men who had been lying in wait. He'd been dragged into the middle of them and as he fought to get back out Farran had unleashed some sort of explosive smoke.  
Gloriella, she realized, inhaling the awful smell still on him. The same paralytic Ansel had used on the mute master. She would never forget that smell.  
Farran and his men had donned masks and Sam had faded out just as they'd dragged him into the carriage.  
It had happened so quickly.  
And it had been flawless. Too flawless.

In all their days of monitoring Farran they'd had no indication he ever traveled with such precautions. Celaena doubted they were customary. Which meant someone had tipped him off. And the only one who'd known what they were planning to do was...

Maybe it was an inside job, she thought. Maybe whoever had hired them to do this had been after them all along.  
Yet even as she thought it, her mind turned to silver eyes and a knife edged smile.

"Celaena."  
His voice chased away the thought.  
"Shh."  
"Celaena."  
She looked down at him in irritation. When they'd found the abandoned storefront in which they currently sheltered, she'd taken time to bandage him as best she could using swaths of her cloak. His continued hold on life grew more sure by the hour, but he should still be resting, not running his damn mouth.  
"You shouldn't have come."  
A sharp hiss left her.  
"It was foolish and stupid. You could have died--"  
"Shut UP, Sam."  
"I told you to leave Farran to me." His voice grew all the stronger, endlessly stubborn.  
"I would let him torture me to death a thousand times over before I let him--"  
"Shut up, Sam, or I'll finish what he started."  
He looked ready to argue, but his wounds had their merits. His eye closed, head sagging back into her lap. She traced her hand through his hair.  
"Celaena."  
"Sam, seriously, I--"  
"I love you."

He'd said it to her so many times. Had she ever said it back?  
Such simple words. Little spits of air that should weigh only so much. Yet they bore on them the weight of the world.

Did she have feelings for Sam? Yes. Did she love him?

Yes.

But the shadows that stretched behind her were so vast. To speak those words to him was a shackle as sure as the ones Farran had used. Using them would chain him to her and all the horrors she bore. She didn't need to say them, not yet. They had time.

All the time in the world.

Time that ticked one on a clock. Time that would have ticked down the hours without concern until Sam Cortland was cold and dead.

She had taken enough time.

"I love you, too, Sam Cortland."

He was so still. She'd taken too much time and he'd actually fallen asleep as she'd wanted him to. She slumped back against the wall.

His unbroken hand found hers, and squeezed.

She bit her lip so hard she bled, her vision blurring.

"Go to sleep, Sam, or I really will kill you."

The next day, when she found it safe, they went for the ship. They were on it at first light. The crew recognized Sam from when he had purchased their fare and asked no questions of his battered face or hastily bandaged eye. They supplied alcohol and fresh bandages to their cabin without question when offered her last pieces of silver.

Still she hovered over him, like a protecting hawk. Sam's purchase had been quiet and discreet. No one should know of their departure. But no one should have known of his attempt on Farran, either.

But nothing happened. Nothing happened, and at last, four days later, the ship set sail.

Down the river, and beyond.

"Sam."

He stirred, his body instinctively pressing closer to hers. She let him stay like that a moment. The stink of the Gloriella was gone, now, back to his familiar subtle Sam smell. The smell of cheap soaps she'd forced him to use. Never again; he'd bathe in lavender all the damn day long for the rest of their lives, as far as she could manage. She pushed into him and took in his scent, his shape, his warmth until she couldn't wait any longer.

"Sam."

Gently she brushed his face. He opened one blurry eye.

"Look."

She stood and he followed slowly after, stretching cautiously. He was healing as well as could be expected. She'd set the bones in his hand and cleaned everything else as best she could. More than that would have to wait until they reached the southern continent and its esteemed healers.

Which, she was pleased to show him as she threw open their cabin door, they were well on their way to doing.

His eye widened at the sight of it. The smell of it. 

The glory and horror of Rifthold was gone. Before them--behind them--all around them was the sea, frothing and blue and beautiful. The clouds meandered overhead across sapphire sky, wayward foam on another ocean.

They, too, headed south. Driven on a familiar wind.

Celaena crossed her arms and put only as much weight on Sam as she knew he could bear.

"Since you're feeling better, you can take guard duty tonight. I'm exhausted."  
"You're so kind, Celaena."  
"More than you know. Don't complain, it's just one door. You've secured worse."

He gave a mock sigh and leaned back against her, too tired and too content to argue.

The world continued to go by. Celaena let it. All that mattered was right here.

And she'd so stupidly almost let him die, because she had taken so long to see it.

Sam felt her shudder, and cocked an eyebrow.

"Celaena?"

"I'm sorry."

It came like a cloudburst. A flood. A torrent worse than the one that had almost drowned her.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry. I wanted Rifthold and comfort and shoes and soap more than I wanted you--I was so stupid! We should have left as soon as we left the guild. And--and I'm ANGRY!"

She pulled away from him. Less suddenly than she could have, making sure he wouldn't fall. Her hands balled into fists.

"You should have let me go with you to take down Farran. Going by yourself was so STUPID! You could have died. You almost DIED, Sam!"  
"Celaena."  
"And you'd do it all again, because you're a damned fool! Damn you, Sam Cortland."

She wanted to stay angry. She had a point. But she also wanted to touch him, to hold him, and so she stepped forward and plopped her head down on a part of his shoulder she knew wasn't injured. He stroked her back and kissed her. She sighed.

"And I know you don't regret a thing, Sam Cortland. But I'm never letting you do anything by yourself again."  
"I suppose I'll have to live with that," he said, gravely. And then laughed. And she did, too, because he already had.  
"I love you."  
"I love you too, Celaena."

And then silence. Nothing but the sounds of the sea and the sailors scurrying around them. Nothing but the beat of one another's hearts.

They were going to a new continent with no money, no belongings, and no idea what they were getting into.

But they had each other. And that was all they needed.

Celaena breathed. She breathed in his smell, stronger than the salt air.

"My name is Celaena Sardothien," she mumbled. He looked down at her.

"What's your name, Sam?"

His arms closed around her.

"My name is Sam Cortland."

They spoke the final words with a shared breath.

"And we are not afraid."

**Author's Note:**

> My mother introduced me to this GODAWFUL SERIES and started with THIS book so I didn't know the inevitable for sure until it was inevitable and my attempts to find comfort on Ao3 led to MORE HORRIBLE SADNESS so I stayed up til 7 AM writing this after I told myself I wouldn't. I started writing as a kid to give sad stuff happy endings and APPARENTLY NOTHING'S CHANGED.  
> Anyway. Enjoy!


End file.
